Leadership and the Next Presidency

05/10/2008 by Steve Farber

I’m off to Boston to participate in a day-long session co-hosted by Ken Blanchard and the Center for Public Leadership. I’m very excited to be spending the day in such esteemed company and to be a small part of the discussion of a singularly critical question. This article, which was posted at ascribe.org, will give you an idea of the day’s agenda and a partial list of the participants (see the end of this post). I’ve done my best to add the appropriate links:

Center for Public Leadership Hosts a ‘Conversation on Leadership and the Next Presidency’; Focus on Competencies – Not Policies – the Times Demand

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 9 (AScribe Newswire) — To help move the national debate beyond slogans and sound bites, Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership (CPL), in partnership with The Ken Blanchard Companies, will convene a daylong conversation on leadership entitled “Leadership and the Next Presidency” on Monday, May 12.

More than 200 leaders from the public and social sectors, corporate world, academia, and the media will gather in Cambridge, with support from the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust and The Charles Hotel, for a program whose focus will be markedly different from many of the public discussions held so far in this presidential campaign season.

“A crisis is a defining moment of any presidency,” noted CPL director David Gergen. “When you look at the daunting challenges that must be addressed in the next four years, and the equally daunting impediments to taking meaningful action – the weakening economy and the increasing volatility in global affairs not least among them – then it becomes clear that the next administration will not lack for defining moments.”

“Given the likelihood of such a scenario,” Gergen continued, “the character, wisdom, and resilience of the next national leader become vital – as important as the particular policies the president puts forward.”

“Leadership and the Next Presidency” will take place at the Charles Hotel, located at One Bennett Street in Cambridge, beginning at 8:30 a.m. The morning will include a conversation on the challenges ahead for the next president, and what is required to address them. The participants will leverage their own vast leadership experience in the afternoon, as they look at the presidential election from a job interview perspective and develop the best questions to evaluate leadership capacity. The afternoon program will also feature messages to would-be presidents from Harvard graduate students representing the next generation of leaders.

“In studying the effectiveness of organizations for more than 40 years,” added Ken Blanchard, leadership consultant and best-selling author, “there is no doubt in my mind that the key ingredient that determines success and human satisfaction is leadership. Every time you talk to people about an organization that is admired, people want to talk about the leaders. Similarly, our next president’s ‘leadership point of view’ will determine what kind of organization runs our country, and what our country becomes. So the critical questions are about the characteristics we need in our next president – and in the appointees and advisers the next president brings into the administration.”

The Center for Public Leadership is committed to continuing this conversation up to and beyond the coming election. For that reason, May 12 will also mark the launch of the CPL Leadership Forum through a weblog to augment this discussion and continue highlighting leadership issues, and Harvard Kennedy School-related topics. On the day of the event a blogging station will be available for attendees to comment on posts by guest bloggers such as Warren Bennis, a legendary figure in the world of leadership studies, and Col. Thomas Kolditz, Professor and Head of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at the United States Military Academy at West Point. The blog will be available at http://www.hks.harvard.edu/leadership/blog .

Participants in this Conversation on Leadership include:

Graham Allison, Douglas Dillon Professor of Government and director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Max Bazerman, Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

About Steve Farber

About Steve Farber

Steve Farber, founder of The Extreme Leadership Institute, is a popular keynote speaker and leadership expert. He’s the bestselling author of The Radical Leap, The Radical Edge, and Greater Than Yourself.